’50 Shades of Grey’ News: Joe Wright Is the Director Frontrunner

Though there are still many decisions yet to be made, Universal and Focus features are adapting '50 Shades of Grey' for the big screen, and the latest news is that 'Anna Karenina' director Joe Wright is currently Universal's top choice for the job.

This comes from The Hollywood Reporter, who suggest multiple sources have put British-born director Joe Wright at the head of the list (even above Gus Van Sant, who shot a test scene with Alex Pettyfer), and note that Universal's top brass is in England right now promoting 'Fast and Furious 6,' so they could be meeting with Wright while there.

Though some might say adapting modified fan-fiction for the big screen is beneath a man who just had Tom Stoppard adapt Leo Tolstoy, the one thing that marks Wright's career to this date is that though his films have been nominated for awards, they've never done that well at the box office. And at this point in his career, after 'Hanna' failed and 'Anna Karenina' failed to attract much Oscar support, doing a big budget film that could be a franchise-starting monster might appeal to the director as it could guarantee him some fiscal clout. We'll post more on this as it develops.